Durand Johnson penetrated the right side of the lane, heaved a running jumper, got fouled and landed awkwardly on his right leg. He cringed for a minute, clutching his knee on the floor, then stood up and sank two free throws.Pitt fans inside the Petersen Events Center sighed in relief. Johnson was the...

The members of the Pitt volleyball team can all agree on their goals for this season: make the NCAA Tournament and finish in at least the top four of the ACC.“The team goal is my personal goal,” said sophomore outside hitter Maria Genitsaridi, who spent her entire summer training with the Greek natio...

Soccer is known as the world’s game and, this fall on campus, there will be plenty of evidence to back up that reputation. The Pitt men’s soccer team has eight players from abroad — its most ever. Prior to this season, the team had seven players from outside the country since 2000, with no mo...

A year can make quite the difference for a struggling team. In 2012, members of a young Pitt women’s cross country team found themselves at the end of their season finishing in sixth place at the East Coast Athletic Conference (ECAC) Championships while their male counterparts did not even qualify...

Pittsburgh basketball fans probably haven’t heard of Jared Culbreath, and you can’t really blame them.Culbreath didn’t play for Pitt. He didn’t even play for his high school team in Augusta, Ga., after he failed to make the last cut. An unknown player, he didn’t receive any athletic scholars...

To the average sports fan, summer is typically a boring period of the year. Baseball is the only “big four” sport in season and, though it’s America’s pastime and the sport of summer, we can pay only so much attention to it. But this summer has been anything but typical. The humdrum that occup...

If you drop by the Monday night open mic at Lava Lounge in Pittsburgh’s South Side, make sure to show up at least 30 minutes late.When I went to a Lava Lounge open mic last month, I showed up early — sometime around 10 p.m. — just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. But when I arrived, a lo...

To curator Lulu Lippincott, the portrait of a woman in Renaissance finery had always seemed oddly patched together. A neutral face that seemed too perfect for its own good stares out from the sumptuous frills and golden cords that dress her. This portrait — attributed to Italian Renaissance painter A...

Unable to find the goal last season, the Pitt men’s soccer team has taken steps to make sure that doesn’t happen again this year.The Panthers finished last season with an overall record of 1-11-4, and they went winless in conference play.Although their first season in the ACC was a rude awakening, he...

Pitt senior Jake Stern interacts with music a bit more frequently than the average student. In addition to being a psychology major and the training director at Pitt’s student-run radio station, WPTS, he’s also a touring musician. As if the wealth of music in the radio station wasn’t enough, Stern...

Members of the Pitt women’s soccer team will wear the roman numeral “XI” on their jerseys this season, signifying the mantra that head coach Greg Miller and the rest of the coaching staff instilled in the team last November: “Year of 11.”This season is the “Year of 11” — a unifying p...

Signing the lease on your first apartment can be a thrilling and completely new experience. But once the deed is done, you might be left wondering how to furnish an apartment on a college student’s meager budget.On a grand scale, furnishing an entire apartment requires a lot of time and even more mo...

By the end of this year, wasting time waiting for a late bus may be extinct in Pittsburgh.Through new government funding, Port Authority — Allegheny County’s public transit provider — has announced its intention to install new live-tracking GPS systems into its bus fleet in the near future, al...

It’s your first weekend at Pitt. You may feel overwhelmed, afraid or even alone, but you’re not. There are a few thousand people just like you. College comes with expectations and, most of the time, they are socially oriented. “Will I meet the right girl?” often becomes, “Yeah we met at Mi...

Tulshi Siwakoti was born in Bhutan and spent 18 years in a refugee camp in Nepal before finally being able to come to the United States in 2009 and joining his parents in Pittsburgh in 2010.“I lived in a very different part of the world. Everyday life was very tough. Here in America, you can have a real job...

The binge-watching bandwagon is taking everyone along for a ride to enjoy the newest way to watch television. From Pitt students to cable companies, many are taking full advantage of one of the 21st century’s grandest achievements to date: Internet streaming. Now, instead of watching a new episode o...

Dessert at Pitt is easy to find. Lucky students with meal plans have access to a basically unlimited supply of ice cream, cookies, brownies, pie and cakes with one swipe at either Market Central or the Perch. The Quick Zone also offers a variety of frozen and non-frozen sweet treats. Students with kitch...

The terms “pizza party” and “pizza after a party” contain a powerful distinction, despite their similar phrasing. The former suggests a first after-school club meeting or a reward for good behavior in elementary school, whereas the latter is usually paired with behavior that could get you kic...

For Patrick D. Gallagher, taking on the role as Pitt’s chancellor will be like freshman year all over again.The Pitt alumnus said the coming school year will hold much of the same excitement and anxieties felt by many students during their first year of college: new peers, a new school to navigate and a n...

Students waiting until classes start to check their Pitt emails are in for a surprise. Pitt’s prior email service, Enterprise Email, transitioned to Microsoft Office 365 on July 27. Those in the Pitt community who previously forwarded their Pitt mail to a private account must reconfigure the forw...

If affirmative action initiatives are meant to increase opportunities for minority groups, then Pitt has done so twofold. In an unprecedented move, Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg selected two Pitt groups, the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and the Career Education and Enhancement ...

Fans of nearly all genres had a show to be excited about this summer. Whether it was big pop (Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry, both at Consol Energy Center), big country (Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean and Brad Paisley), big rap (Drake vs. Lil Wayne and Tyler, the Creator) or indie darlings (Future Islands and Shar...

This November, the Republican Party will seek to take back the U.S. Senate after eight long years of being the frustrated — yet no less verbal — minority. It has been eight years highlighted by rhetoric, filibusters and gridlock.But, luckily for the Grand Old Party, they will no longer have to resort to ...

Each fall, college freshmen arrive on campus eager to begin the next chapter of their lives. During this time, choosing an undergraduate academic discipline will be one of the most important decisions they make.For those interested in law, government or politics, political science seems like an obvious choice....

Following the financial crisis in 2007 and subsequent recession of 2007-2009, the discipline of economics began a soul-searching process of questioning its very foundations. Far from the arrogance that characterized the field during the 1990s and 2000s, economist Paul Krugman tackled the question “How Di...

After the 1888 case of Pembina Consolidated Silver Mining and Milling Company vs. Pennsylvania, the United States legal system established that a corporation holds the status of a person. But in order for democracy to be effective, it must be flexible to change.It is time to take dramatic action aga...

There is very little that the entire incoming freshman class has in common with each other, let alone with the rest of the student body. But, at least in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, all students will at least form one type of symbiotic relationship in which all depend on each other. I le...

It’s almost that time again: With November approaching, flocks of politicians of all stripes will be begging for your vote. Although millennials may not be known for voting, with a 41.2 percent election turnout for the 2012 election, some of us are bound to venture into politics. For the benefit o...

Whether you know the minute you arrive on campus as a freshman or take a few semesters — or years — to figure it out, at some point in your college career, you will have to make the decision that will affect the rest of your life: your major. As soon as you choose the major that will be inscribe...

Corbett Intro: In politics, experience is essential. It is often an excellent predictor of a candidate’s prospective success in office. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party nominee, Tom Wolf, touts a resumé of bankrupt companies and enters the 2014 Election for the Governor of Pennsylvania under a v...

The apparent disparity of income inequality among low- and high-income families in the United States is at an all-time high. Income inequality, or poverty to be exact, is one of the most deprecating issues hindering society and, for decades now, little has been done to reverse the trend.Programs such...

Imagine that a comically evil, diabolical organization has, unbeknownst to the general public, infiltrated society. The league has committed atrocities such as ignoring basic human rights, collecting millions of dollars in bribes, rigging votes and pushing its agenda on the unwilling. Now what if ...

Syllabus week — the first week of classes during which syllabi are disseminated and discussed — is generally the least stressful week of the semester. Going over the syllabus can take up the majority of class, meaning that professors can’t get into full lecture mode until later in the week and, b...

There was a point in my childhood when I considered myself an illegal immigrant. I was too young then to understand what being an “asylee” — a permanent refugee — meant, but old enough to understand that immigration was a problem and that illegal “aliens” were stealing our jobs and our pr...

Arriving on campus for the fall semester officially signifies the end of summer vacation, but it doesn’t mark a conclusion to the sunny weather of the summer. Unfortunately, sunshine at Pitt is a lot like our excitement for the new semester: fleeting.Similar to the manner in which lectures, tests ...